High-Tech-City in Changchun

High-Tech-City

Architects: HENN

Location: Changchun, China

Transforming Location – Start of Construction for the High-Tech-City, Changchun

In line with the competition-winning entry of 2016, the metropolis of Changchun is to be given a new urban-planning focus by 2020. As a new and key economic motor, high-tech companies are to act to enhance the traditional industrial structure in China’s north-eastern province. Since the 1960s the metropolis of Changchun has been a centre of the Chinese automobile industry, the production sites of domestic and foreign manufacturers having defined the shape of the city.

The new district, situated in the south of the city between the green belt and the university, is intended to promote structural change and boost the service sector by attracting advanced-technology firms. A group of five towers of varying heights – the tallest 270 metres high – forms the plaza of the new central business district. The structure of the development site reconciles the differing patterns of the adjacent urban fabric, using the overlappings to define a distribution of diamond-shaped lots that constitute the footprints of the new centrepiece highrises. These towers soar upwards out of the public urban space, forming village-style commercial zones in the intermediate base as well as office space and hotel facilities in the storeys above. Both the building form and the facade detailing are tailored to the harsh weather conditions in Northern China.

Corresponding to the main wind direction, the facades facing east and west are more closed, while their northern and southern counterparts have a greater level of light admission and provide views over the neighbouring parks. The development is divided into three phases, commencing with the 200-metre-high office tower to the east and both of the two smaller hotel towers in the northern section of the plaza.